The Philippines has two classes of public holiday, and the difference decides what you get paid. Regular holidays — usually twelve of them — pay double time for work performed and full pay for staying home. Special non-working days, of which there are typically six to ten, pay a 30% premium for work and nothing at all for staying home unless a company policy says otherwise. The list is issued by presidential proclamation each year, and the president can add or move days at will.
The Philippine Holiday Calendar
| Date | Holiday | Description |
|---|---|---|
| January 1 | New Year's Day | Celebrations with family; firecrackers (despite bans); Media Noche feast |
| February 25 | EDSA People Power Revolution Anniversary | Commemorates the 1986 peaceful revolution that ended the Marcos dictatorship |
| April 2 | Maundy Thursday | Start of Holy Week; the most important Catholic observance |
| April 3 | Good Friday | Solemn day; some devotees have themselves crucified in Pampanga |
| April 4 | Black Saturday | Last day of Holy Week; sombre reflection |
| April 9 | Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor) | Honours the Filipino and American soldiers of the Bataan Death March |
| May 1 | Labor Day | Workers' rallies and demonstrations |
| June 12 | Independence Day | Celebrates independence from Spain in 1898; flag-raising ceremonies |
| August 21 | Ninoy Aquino Day | Honours the assassinated opposition leader |
| August 31 | National Heroes Day | Honours all Filipino heroes; last Monday of August |
| November 1 | All Saints' Day | Families visit and camp at cemeteries; major cultural event |
| November 30 | Bonifacio Day | Honours Andres Bonifacio, leader of the Philippine Revolution |
| December 25 | Christmas Day | The Philippines celebrates the longest Christmas season in the world |
| December 30 | Rizal Day | Honours national hero Jose Rizal, executed in 1896 |
| March 20 | Eid al-Fitr (approx.) | End of Ramadan; national holiday recognizing Muslim community |
| May 27 | Eid al-Adha (approx.) | Festival of Sacrifice; national holiday |
Regular Versus Special
The distinction comes from the Labour Code and is the single most consequential fact about Philippine holidays. On a regular holiday, a worker who does not work still receives 100% of their daily wage; one who works receives 200%.
On a special non-working day the no-work-no-pay principle applies, so an employee who stays home gets nothing unless their contract or a collective agreement provides otherwise. Working pays an additional 30%.
There is a third, rarer category: special working days, which are ordinary paid days that are designated for observance without any premium. These are usually used for commemorations the government wants marked without economic cost.
The President Sets the Calendar
Each year's holidays are issued by proclamation, typically in the second half of the preceding year. The proclamation lists the regular holidays, the special non-working days, and any special working days.
Presidents have used this power actively. Holidays have been moved to the nearest Monday under a holiday economics policy, moved back, added for papal visits and ASEAN summits, and declared at short notice for local events.
The holiday economics approach, associated with the Arroyo administration, deliberately shifted holidays to create long weekends and boost domestic tourism. It was applied inconsistently and largely dropped, and several holidays are now fixed to their historical dates by law.
Two Eid Holidays in a Catholic Country
Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are national regular holidays in the Philippines, which is around 79% Catholic and 6% Muslim.
Eid al-Fitr was made a national holiday in 2002 and Eid al-Adha in 2009, both under laws extending observances previously limited to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The dates are announced by proclamation each year following the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos' determination.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region observes additional Islamic holidays regionally, including the Prophet's birthday and the Islamic new year. It also has its own regional holidays marking the region's establishment in 2019.
Holy Week
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Black Saturday are all holidays — the first two regular, the third special non-working. Together with Easter Sunday they close the country for four days.
Holy Week is the largest travel period of the Philippine year. Manila empties, provincial bus terminals overflow, and the ferry system to the Visayas and Mindanao runs at capacity.
Observances include the pabasa, a continuous chanted reading of the passion narrative over 24 hours or more, and processions of life-sized statues. In San Fernando, Pampanga, a small number of penitents are voluntarily nailed to crosses on Good Friday, a practice the Catholic Church discourages and which draws large crowds and international coverage.
Two Independence Days, Sort Of
12 June is Independence Day, marking the 1898 proclamation of independence from Spain at Kawit, Cavite. The date was moved there in 1962 by President Diosdado Macapagal.
Before that, the Philippines observed 4 July, the date the United States granted independence in 1946. That date is now Republic Day, a special working day rather than a holiday, and its downgrading was a deliberate assertion that Philippine independence was declared rather than granted.
The 1898 declaration was not recognised by Spain or the United States, and the Philippine-American War followed. Independence Day in the Philippines commemorates an assertion that was subsequently defeated, which is unusual among national days.
The Days That Moved
Several Philippine holidays commemorate events whose dates were chosen after the fact, and a few have moved. National Heroes Day, on the last Monday of August, was originally 30 November before being consolidated; Bonifacio Day on 30 November now marks the birth of Andres Bonifacio, founder of the Katipunan, separately.
Araw ng Kagitingan on 9 April, the Day of Valour, marks the fall of Bataan in 1942 and the beginning of the Bataan Death March, in which tens of thousands of Filipino and American prisoners were forced to walk around 100 kilometres and thousands died.
It is one of the few Philippine holidays commemorating a defeat, and it is observed at the Mount Samat shrine in Bataan with a dawn ceremony attended by surviving veterans and their families, a group that is now very small.
EDSA and People Power
25 February marks the 1986 People Power Revolution, in which several days of mass demonstrations along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Manila brought down Ferdinand Marcos without a general armed conflict.
Its holiday status has fluctuated. It has been a special non-working day in some years and a working holiday or omitted in others, and the treatment has tracked the politics of the administration in office. It was removed from the 2023 list of non-working days and reinstated as a special working day.
The anniversary is marked with commemorations at the EDSA Shrine. The election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr as president in 2022 made the observance more contested than at any point since it was established.
All Saints and All Souls
1 and 2 November are among the most observed days in the Philippines. Families travel to cemeteries, clean and repaint tombs, and stay for the day and often overnight, with food, music and card games.
The occasion is called Undas or Todos los Santos, and cemeteries operate under crowd-control measures with police deployment, banned items and one-way pedestrian systems. Public transport is reinforced and traffic schemes are published in advance.
1 November is a special non-working day and 2 November is usually added. The scale of the movement out of Manila is second only to Holy Week and Christmas.
The Longest Christmas
The Philippines is widely described as having the world's longest Christmas season, beginning on 1 September — the start of the so-called Ber months — and running to the Feast of the Three Kings in January.
Only 25 December and 30 December are holidays in that stretch, along with 24 and 31 December as special non-working days in most years. 30 December is Rizal Day, marking the 1896 execution of José Rizal by Spanish colonial authorities.
Simbang Gabi, nine dawn masses from 16 to 24 December, is the central religious observance and is attended in very large numbers. None of the nine days is a holiday.
Local Holidays
Cities and provinces declare their own holidays for founding anniversaries and patronal fiestas, and these are legally binding within their jurisdiction. Manila Day is 24 June; Cebu's Sinulog is in January; Iloilo's Dinagyang follows a week later; Baguio's Panagbenga in February.
These are frequently among the largest festivals in the country. Sinulog draws over a million people to Cebu City, and the Ati-Atihan in Kalibo, Aklan, is claimed as the origin of the whole genre.
The president also declares local holidays by proclamation for provincial anniversaries and for events like a papal visit, which in 2015 closed metropolitan Manila for several days.
What Filipino Workers Get
The Labour Code provides five days of service incentive leave a year after one year of service, which is among the lowest statutory annual leave entitlements anywhere. Most formal employers offer considerably more, typically ten to fifteen days of vacation plus separate sick leave.
The generous holiday list partly offsets that. Twelve regular holidays plus six to ten special days is high by international standards, and the pay premiums are among the most generous.
Both facts matter more in the formal sector than outside it. A large share of Philippine employment is informal, where neither the leave entitlement nor the holiday premium reaches. For related context, see the count of countries in Asia and the countries where Spanish is official, the language that shaped the Philippine calendar for three centuries.
